Microsoft's Xbox Live online console service will be shut down for 24 hours
later this week in order to allow the company's engineers time to install the
new Xbox Live 3.0 functionality, codenamed "Tsunami".

The new Xbox Live features will require that users download a patch the next
time they connect to the service, and will include some functions which have
been discussed by the company since E3 last year.

The Xbox Live 3.0 will include more advanced support for "clans" of players,
and it will support integration with the MSN Messenger chat service on PCs.
An online storage space will available for users for storing their configuration files.

These features will not be immediately available to players,
as they need to be integrated into individual games by the developers. Microsoft expects the first games to support the features
to appear in a matter of months, as development SDKs for Xbox Live 3.0 went out to
developers several months ago.